| The Spy Who Dumped Me | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Susanna Fogel |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Barry Peterson |
| Edited by | Jonathan Schwartz |
| Music by | Tyler Bates |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Lionsgate |
Release date |
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Running time | 117 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $40 million[2] |
| Box office | $75.3 million[2] |
The Spy Who Dumped Me is a 2018 Americanactioncomedy film directed bySusanna Fogel and co-written by Fogel andDavid Iserson. The film starsMila Kunis,Kate McKinnon,Justin Theroux,Sam Heughan,Hasan Minhaj, andGillian Anderson and follows two best friends who are chased by assassins through Europe after one of their ex-boyfriends turns out to be aCIA agent. The title is a play on theJames Bond filmThe Spy Who Loved Me, andAustin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
The film was shot in Amsterdam and Budapest from July to September 2017. It was released in the United States on August 3, 2018, byLionsgate and grossed more than $75 million, while receiving mixed reviews from critics, who questioned the film's intended genre and tone but praised the performances.
InLos Angeles, cashier Audrey Stockman spends her birthday upset after her boyfriend Drew dumps her. Her best friend and roommate, Morgan Freeman, convinces her to burn his things and texts him beforehand as a warning. Audrey has no idea Drew is a government agent being pursued by men trying to kill him. He promises to return and asks her to not torch anything in the meantime.
At work, Audrey flirts with a man who asks her to walk him to his car. Forced into a van, the man identifies himself as Sebastian Henshaw. He reveals that Drew works for theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) and has gone missing. Audrey claims not to have heard from him and is let go.
Drew shows up for his possessions, including a fantasy football trophy. People begin shooting at them and he tells Audrey that, if he dies, she must go to a certain café inVienna and give the trophy to his contact. Drew is then shot by a man Morgan had taken home from a bar, whom she then pushes off the balcony.
Morgan convinces Audrey to go to Vienna. At the café, Sebastian appears and demands the trophy at gunpoint. Audrey reluctantly hands it over before the entire café is attacked. The friends flee, chased by men on motorcycles. Audrey reveals that she still has Drew's trophy as she had switched it with one of several decoys they had purchased for such an event.
Boarding a train toPrague, they discover Drew's trophy contains aUSB card. Morgan calls her parents, who tell her they can stay in Prague with their family friend, Roger.
Audrey and Morgan get to the apartment, but discover "Roger" is actually a spy who drugged them and killed the real Roger. Morgan tries to swallow the flash drive. After that fails, Audrey tells their captors that she flushed it down the toilet.
The ladies wake up in an abandoned gymnastics training facility, about to be tortured by Nadejda, a Russian gymnast, model, and assassin trained by the older couple who had previously masqueraded as Drew's parents. Audrey and Morgan are rescued by Sebastian, who defied orders to save them. He brings them to his boss in Paris, where they once again tell the CIA andMI6 that the drive was flushed. The women are given tickets to go back to America, while Sebastian is suspended.
Driving back to the airport, Sebastian explains that Drew's "parents" are actually notorious criminals. Drew was discreetly negotiating with them on the sale of the USB card, and Audrey was part of his cover. Audrey confesses that she had actually hidden the drive in her vagina. When Sebastian cannot decrypt the information on the card, Morgan calls her old Summer camp friendEdward Snowden for assistance; he helps them hack it.
The trio travel to a hostel inAmsterdam, where they are attacked by Sebastian's CIA partner Duffer, who plans to sell the drive himself. They are rescued by their hostel roommate, who thinks they are being robbed and body slams Duffer to his death. Audrey answers Duffer's phone when it rings and agrees to sell the drive at a private party inBerlin.
To get into the buyer, Audrey and Sebastian disguise themselves as the Canadian ambassador and his wife, while Morgan joins theCirque du Soleil crew. Sebastian is attacked and Morgan is confronted by Nadejda on an acrobat swing, eventually killing her. Meanwhile, Audrey meets her mysterious contact and finds Drew, who is still alive and searches through her purse for the USB. Sebastian arrives, held hostage by Drew's "parents".
After a standoff, Drew's "parents" are shot, leaving Sebastian and Drew, who accuse each other of trying to hurt Audrey. Drew then shoots Sebastian, and Audrey pretends to be glad before grabbing his gun. When he tries to attack her, she kicks him in the groin. Once he is on the ground, Morgan throws a cannonball at him. Drew is arrested, and Audrey, Morgan, and Sebastian escape.
Sebastian later gives Morgan his untraceable phone to let her parents know she is alive. As she's talking, Sebastian's boss calls to lift his suspension. Morgan begs her for a job as a spy. Meanwhile, Sebastian and Audrey kiss.
A year later, while celebrating Audrey's birthday inTokyo, her party is revealed to be a ruse, as it's actually an assignment with Sebastian to stop a group of JapaneseYakuza gangsters.
Principal photography began inBudapest, Hungary in July 2017.[3] Filming also took place inAmsterdam that September, wrapping the same month.[4]
The Spy Who Dumped Me premiered atRegency Village Theater inLos Angeles on July 25, 2018.[5] The film was originally scheduled to be released on July 6, 2018, but after "a phenomenal test screening" it was pushed back a month to August 3, 2018, in order to avoid a crowded July frame.[6][7]
The Spy Who Dumped Me was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 30, 2018, by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.[8]
The Spy Who Dumped Me grossed $33.6 million in the United States and Canada, as well as $41.7 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $75.3 million, against a production budget of $40 million.[2]
In the United States and Canada,The Spy Who Dumped Me was released alongsideChristopher Robin,The Darkest Minds andDeath of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time?, and was projected to gross $10–15 million from 3,111 theaters in its opening weekend.[9] The film made $5 million on its first day, including $950,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $12.4 million, finishing third at the box office, behind holdoverMission: Impossible – Fallout andChristopher Robin.[10] It fell 45% to $6.6 million in its second weekend, finishing sixth.[11]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 49% of 208 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Spy Who Dumped Me isn't the funniest or most inventive spy comedy, but Kate McKinnon remains as compulsively watchable as ever."[12]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 52 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[13]
Variety'sOwen Gleiberman praised McKinnon's performance but criticized the film for favoring violence over comedy, writing, "The Spy Who Dumped Me is no debacle, but it's an over-the-top and weirdly combustible entertainment, a movie that can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a light comedy caper or a top-heavy exercise in B-movie mega-violence."[14] Barbara VanDenburgh ofThe Arizona Republic called the film "a tonally incongruous, plodding and graphically violent comedy" and gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, noting: "Perhaps the problem isn't one of too little ambition, but of too much.The Spy Who Dumped Me is, after all, trying earnestly to be about half a dozen different things: a buddy comedy, a spy drama, a raunch fest, a thrilling action film. It's just that it doesn't have the focus to do any of those things particularly well".[15]Rolling Stone'sPeter Travers criticized the film, similarly rating it 2 out of 5 stars. He stated that the film "spends way too much time on car chases, shootouts, knife fights and R-rated violence that doesn't square with the film's comic agenda" and also commented that "The Spy Who Dumped Me isn't just painfully unfunny—it criminally wastes the comic talents of Kate McKinnon".[16]
Richard Brody ofThe New Yorker praised the film, stating, "Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon riff gleefully in the ample and precise framework of Susanna Fogel's effervescent action comedy",[17] whileJustin Chang of theLos Angeles Times also gave it a positive review, writing, "The Spy Who Dumped Me [is] a fast, funny Europe-trotting buddy caper".[18] Johnny Oleksinski of theNew York Post opined it was nice to see McKinnon used properly in a film, and that Kunis was the ideal straight woman, calling the two a smart match.[19]
| Awards | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People's Choice Awards | November 11, 2018 | Favorite Comedy Movie | The Spy Who Dumped Me | Won | [20][21] |
| Favorite Comedic Movie Actress | Mila Kunis | Nominated |
| International | |
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| National | |